A surrender to strangeness
by Valhalla
Summary: Daniel get acquainted with his fellow freighties. Just a little angst-free nostalgia for last season. Spoilers up to 5x01. Daniel/Charlotte, Miles, Frank, Naomi, Keamy, Gault.


**Title:** a surrender to strangeness

**Characters/Pairings:** Dan, Charlotte, Frank, Miles, ensemble, hints of Dan/Charlotte.

**Summary:** Daniel get acquainted with his fellow freighties.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** Up to 5x01.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**A/N:** Title from Buck 65. Just a little angst-free nostalgia for last season.

----

_Family_, Daniel considers with a smile, _it's really all relative, isn't it?_

There are a whole bunch of different definitions for the word, he knows (like the halogen family of elements, or the major subdivisions of an order in biological classifications) and it's not like what he grew up with was anything close, no way, but he thinks that _this_ -- this strange little band of scientists and muscle (what Miles calls them, with a sneer) trapped on the freighter together -- has to be far from it too.

Frank's the one who uses the term first; he's like everyone's favourite uncle, and Daniel enjoys his company, even if sometimes he feels like reminding the pilot he's 36 years old, thankyouverymuch, and doesn't need the patronizing tone. It's okay, though, because Frank's just trying to help, keep things ship-shape -- it's a word he likes to use, a lot, and sometimes Dan even finds it cropping up in his own subconscious thoughts -- to take care of everyone.

That reference, _family_, always comes with a side of sarcasm and a long-suffering eye roll from Frank, like they're anything but. (Dan doesn't agree, not really anymore, because eventually he feels more at home on the freighter than he has anywhere else in a long time, but he keeps that information to himself, safe and tucked away.)

Frank tells Dan stories, whether he wants to hear them or not, about when he was a 'copter pilot with the military in the '80s -- Iran, Libya, Lebanon; far-off places that fill Dan's mind with images of swirling dust and gunfire -- and then flying for commercial airlines. Long, wandering tales, and sometimes Frank gets sort of ... wistful, like there's something he's missing, and even Dan -- whose social graces really aren't graceful at all -- realizes there's a disconnect between two Purple Hearts and a whiskey-soaked wifebeater.

----

Gault's in charge -- "Big Daddy," is what Omar and some of the other guys call him, though Dan thinks it's less than friendly -- and he's the one who actually welcomes Dan onto the boat, with a firm, strong handshake that makes him wince a little.

"Um, hey -- hi," Dan mutters, clenching his fingers to make sure they still work. "Nice to meet you, captain."

Gault nods, brisk. "Faraday. Get yourself settled below decks and come find your team leader."

Dan nods back, trying to mirror the gesture but it comes out at a stilted, jutting angle. "Sure, sure."

There's an even keel to Gault, cool and collected as he surveys the surroundings, the calculated chaos of packing and loading the ship. Dan appreciates the gesture, the normalcy of it, as he moves past the captain and struggles with his bag ... even if normal is the last thing they're bound to find on this trip.

----

Dan runs into Keamy -- he's a bully, like that mean cousin you dread visiting during the holidays -- once, just once, in the bowels of the ship. And it's literally -- with his head buried in his journal, he slams into what feels like a wall of muscle, skidding to a stop with the force of it.

Keamy narrows his eyes, leaning in just a little too close. "Watch it, nerd."

He reeks of gunpowder and sweat and Dan has to bury back a gag because -- it's a trick of the eye, too-dim lighting in the corridor, but still -- he can almost see that his hands are dark and slick with red. (It makes Dan wonder, not for the first time, what "extraction" really means.)

----

Naomi doesn't have patience for any of them, the older sister always stuck with babysitting duties; Dan even less than most. She's economic with her words -- short, clipped -- and his rambling questions seem to pique at her nerves. And he's got lots of them -- their projected coordinates, forecasted weather patterns, how to clean the handgun they issued him (though he still doesn't know why, and stumbles with the safety every time they do weapons training). She doesn't get him; Naomi is steel and strength, talks through hands and fists and brute force -- she doesn't have time for Dan's abstract, theoretical existence.

She's a good leader, though, Dan thinks; she could help him out if he, who knows, was attacked by angry natives or surrounded by wild boars or something. She'll protect them, if she can, though sometimes Dan wishes he had a better idea of what he'll need protection from.

----

He finds Miles -- the black sheep of their group, though none of them are exactly white -- out on the deck one night, slumped over the railing and looking so ... lonely, gazing out on the roiling ocean with dark eyes. He's sad; it's a word Dan never thought he'd use in the same sentence with Miles -- surly, or grouchy, way before that -- and both men are surprised by the pressure of Dan's palm on Miles' shoulder.

Dan's been accused of being _touchy-feely_ before -- foolish expression, if he's ever heard one; mostly it just makes him squirm with embarrassment -- but it's just that he understands connection helps; sometimes the only thing that slows his spinning brain is to remember, to feel what's actually real, to pull yourself back down to earth. And he wants to help Miles, because he knows what it's like to be stuck in your own skin, even though he doesn't like him much.

"Uh," Dan starts. Stops, licks his lips. "Miles, what're you doing out here? Are you ... you doing alright?"

He cringes, sheepish at how useless his words feel, how they die quick deaths and fall, limp, into the cool air.

"I'm fine," Miles glowers, shrugging off Dan's hand. "Fine."

One syllable, dry and cryptic, almost a growl.

No, Dan thinks as he turns back inside, Miles isn't very fine at all.

----

Charlotte is different.

All hard edges and soft smiles, a -- Dan's mind fumbles at the word -- a polarity, a contradiction. She gives him looks -- long, quiet looks; looks only for him, he hopes -- and she seems to light up from the inside, like there's a secret fire in there somewhere.

There's a wall, with the others, though; made of pursed lips and the firm line of her jaw and a critical eye. She does her job just fine, will tolerate almost anyone professionally, but the niceties and chit-chat that come along with it seem beyond her scope. _Why bother?_ she tells Dan one day with a shrug. _It's easier not to._

She doesn't get involved, Charlotte, but she watches sometimes, takes in the whirring activity all through the freighter. People can usually be boiled down to a series of rituals and habits, is another thing she says to Dan, lounging in the galley one afternoon while rain pit-patters on the windows. It's systemic, humanity, she explains, across every culture and civilization.

"That doesn't sound very ... human," is Dan's reply, which he thinks must be rich coming from someone who's turned his back on most people for the company of numbers and proofs and equations.

But Charlotte just laughs, high and light, and favours him with another grin, the thumping of his heart suddenly joining in time with the rain, a rhythmic cacophony in his ears. And if it could move any farther into his throat it does when she reaches across the table and squeezes his hand, her touch cool and too brief.

"It doesn't, does it?" she muses, tapping her fingers against his wrist in almost a thinking gesture before pulling away.

Dan just gulps and counts the freckles spilling across the bridge of her nose, wishing he were a little bit braver.

----

Less than three weeks later and his family is scattered to the wind; Frank in his doomed 'copter circling the ocean, Keamy rotting in the jungle, Naomi long gone and Gault sacrificed to the sea, if that black plume of smoke on the horizon meant anything. Crashing onto shore in the zodiac, though, legs soaked and covered with sand; stumbling into the beach camp and back into Charlotte's arms -- even Miles with a look of relief -- Dan thinks maybe the thing he never got about family is that it's ever-changing, always shifting ... and maybe being marooned, trapped on the island even with that huge expanse of blue before them, is another chance at it.

He folds himself around Charlotte, face buried in her hair, and smiles.


End file.
